September 27 – October 11, 2018
“You live with the cards life’s dealt you. We are the ones to make
things right.” Bob Dylan, The Chronicles
Mental Screen
What is intellectual, and what visual realism, or, do we draw/paint things the way we know they are (and what structures that knowledge) or do we paint them the way they seem to be – is a philosophical question (from Plato to existentialism). This dilemma has been shadowing Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic, the painter, since the midnineties, from the beginning of her career, when she founded the poetics of her own work upon the traditionalist comprehension of a painting; a painted space, like a mental screen where a complex world of human relations, ideas, situations, occurrences is projected… We may believe the old truth that there are no big and small or outdated subjects; the concepts and ideas are founded, first of all, on the basis of the artist’s idea, its elaboration, penetrability of the system, and on the positioning of the problem within a time context.
Actual and/or Possible
Searching for ideals of a mutual/family life and ambient of personal happiness directed the thematic framework of these paintings towards family motives and fragments of private life with autobiographical elements. The open question of the principle of dis/ satisfaction of the Person and the Shadow is suspended in the air. One could say that Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic is trying, through her art, to overcome the duality of the actual and/ or possible, the duality of her personal life and the projection of her inner self into the outside world, risking, at the same time, a non/comprehension and wrong perception on the part of the Others. She is trying, through her work, to overcome dangers and traps that come with certain conventions when searching for an adequate graphic and pictorial equivalent.
The Things Women do for Beauty
The Painter’s need to dominate the space with her art is visible in her present work, and fairy-tale atmosphere with subversive elements gives structure to the concept of new collages and crinolines. Selma develops her affinity towards the stage and stage-like in a dialogue with historical costume and times of women-ladies, when nobleness was reflected in an immaculate dress code. The projects with corset-objects progressed into an even more developed system dedicated to the visual play with crinolines and creations of scenic costumes in line with Selma’s own aesthetics.
Crinoline-cage (or, the matter of identity and integrity)
A long skirt or dress has been present in female fashion throughout centuries. A dress-cage, in which a woman is untouchable, is made of firm loops covered with an underskirt fairy tale that has been going on and on since the time immemorial, reborn with every new child and new writer.“ (G. Olujic, Fairy Tale Poetics)
The Sleeping Beauty in a Garden of Roses
Abundance of flowers becomes a metaphor of love and gardens of Eden. If asked: “What does your work feed on?“ The Painter would, most likely, answer: “On floral and folklore elements, on Persian rugs and roses, on models of our culture“. And really, in colouristicly magnificent and fragrant rose gardens painted by Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic, there live princesses (from fairy tales) ready to grace our dreams. The Sleeping Beauty is one of them. A fairy tale, a treasure chest of archetypal “primal images“ and symbols that come from the collective unconscious (Jung) is most revealing and liberating. The fairy tale figures thus become carriers of our own projections, while the fairy tale itself shields the cure.
Psychoanalyst Dr. Bruno Bettelheim
He represents a provocative and stimulative research of the best-known fairy tales. He reveals the true content of the stories and goes on to show how children can use them to overcome confusing feelings and apprehensions.
The Sleeping Beauty
The Painter’s Sleeping Beauty is also a metaphore for a historical era and a memory of the past leaders (the Prince, the King, Lenin, Tito). The flowers are the common denominator in the author’s painting art. They have the form of ethnic embellishments, and topped by layers of lace or some other fine material. Advocates of woman’s freedom have accused fashion designers of intentional imprisonment of the woman in a cage, with her arms tied. How can anyone feel well with so much steel on themselves (however light), covered with metres of material? Wearing a crinoline is a genuine challenge, but, in spite of all difficulties, ladies feel special in it, at least that is what designers of wedding dresses believe.
Towards the Sleeping Beauty
The act of painting – coordination of psychomotor activities – serves the articulation of noticing, remembering, feeling and other experiences that can be traced back to childhood and the time of play. The very roots of aesthetic illusions can be associated with the early childhood, a period in life where all children can draw. In a way, this active repetition of passive experiences, subdues the pivotal dilemmas on Winners and Losers, and the unity, equilibrium and stability of a person, albeit fragmented, are conquering a new life space. There, the fairy tales are poetically condensed and transformed into private situations.
Fairy Tales
They too, like dreams, use the language of symbols, and symbols come from the depths of the unconscious. “A fairy tale that wholly reflects the splendour of the world unity is not a substitute, but a legitimate form of a childhood world where wonders never stop, just like a scattered and sewn onto corsets, Tito’s image, collages; they also dominate the drawings. It is more than a simple truth that utopic politicians’ projects can put not just princesses to sleep, but the whole nations. Social and other provocative taboos are dragging behind us. Official historic memory becomes retrograde. The project on the love that saved the Sleeping Beauty is close to the sensibility of the femina.
The Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm
It sends the message: the love and noblenesswin. We should not be vindictive. Fairy tales have been an integral part of childhoods for centuries. In that communication code, Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic creates her ambient fairy tale for children and adults. Intelligently and provocatively, in collages and crinolines, she creates, with mimicking and subversive means, a pleasant ambient fairy tale that awaits the return of princesses and heroes-princes. Ideological phenomena and a social agenda are hidden behind the artistic concept marked by an abundance of flowers with reference to love and gardens of Eden. The arrhythmia of time is marked by inconsistent attention, condensed everyday life and stereotypes. Despite all this, Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic believes that art can change the world.
Ljiljana Ćinkul
Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic
Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic was born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in 1967. She studied Art History at Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. She acquired BA at the Belgrade Faculty of Fine Arts – Painting Department in 1994. At the same department, she gained Master of Arts in 1997, as well as PhD Arts in 2012. Since 1995 she has been a member of ULUS (the Association of Visual Artists of Serbia). She has also been a member of OISTAT/Costume Design Group since 2010. She won the following awards: the Golden Palette in 2013 – awarded by ULUS, the Honourable Mention of the International Jury of the 10th International Biennial of Miniature Art in Gornji Milanovac, Serbia in 2010, the White Angel of Milesheva in Prijepolje, Serbia in 2010. As a student she gained four awards of the Belgrade Faculty of Fine Arts – for a drawing in 1991, for a portrait in 1993, for mosaics in 1993 and the Great Award for Painting in 1994. Since 1991 she has had 18 solo exhibitions in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Belgium. She has participated in numerous important exhibitions of ULUS since 1995 and international exhibitions such as: the Biennial of Portrait INTERBIFEP in Tuzla (BiH) and the International Biennial of Miniature Art, Gornji Milanovac (Serbia) and Hanga Forum in Japan. She took part in Symposium and Workshop organized by OISTAT in Istanbul: Cultural Exchange Between East and West-Kaftan and Its Influence in Fashion. She has been working at the Belgrade Faculty of Applied Arts since 2000. As assistant-trainee she worked at Applied painting Department and at the Department for Conservation and Restoration, as assistant she worked at the Costume Department (Modul Stage Costume and Modul Fashion Design). Since 2007 she works as a docent at the Graphic Department, teaching Drawing and Painting (Module Printmaking and book design, Modul Animation, Module Photography and Modul Graphic Design). She became Associated professor in 2014, attached to the Graphic Department teaching Drawing and Painting. Three works of Selma Djulizarevic Karanovic belong to the Collection of Belgrade City Museum and one has recently purchased by Ministry of Culture of Serbia for the Gallery Nadezda Petrovic Collection of Contemporary Art, Cacak, Serbia.